Chapter Five
Now
Jasper
Ilean back in my chair, pinching a quarter between my thumb and index finger. Giving it a quick spin, I watch as the silver disc rotates on my desk. Lost in thought, the warm summer air brings the repeated heaviness of what I once had and lost.
“Jasper?” I hear Gail, my assistant, say my name over the top of my computer.
I dart my eyes to hers just as the quarter hits the floor. “Yes?”
She clutches a stack of manilla folders against her chest with a frown. “The start of summer is always hard for you,” she says softly.
I rub my lips together, giving her a subtle nod in agreement.
The corners of her eyes wrinkle more than they usually are. “How long has it been now?”
“Eight years.”
Gail’s eyebrow knit. “And you haven’t thought about trying to find her?”
I’ve thought about it every single day for those first few years. But with every painstaking year that passed, it got easier to accept that things would never happen again between us. A fleeting love that you read about in books or see in sappy romance movies. The reality was much different.
“Of course, I have.”
It took a long time to accept, but with grief, the mind finds a way to push through. I had to realize that the woman I was unequivocally in love with, the woman I married at nineteen years old, who would have been the mother to my future children, no longer wanted me.
“And?” She lowers her thick glasses.
“She left me, Gail,” I say, stiffening my posture.
I’m unsure if it’s harder hearing those words uttered in the comfort of my own skull or reverberating through my ears.
Either way, they both feel shitty. Avery was clear about what she wanted and didn’t want in her life, and it sure wasn’t me.
Letting her go was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I knew it was what she truly wanted.
Gail lets out a deep sigh and glances around the room before turning her eyes back on me, wondering if she should continue pressing or let it go. “Well, okay then. How’s Melanie?”
“Fine,” I say, shuffling a few planning and zoning documents around my desk. I need to work on these approvals as soon as I can. The last few days have weighed on me.
“Just fine?” She curls a lip in shock or disbelief. I’m not sure.
Melanie and I have had this casual thing for the last few months. She moved to town last December to help with her sister’s clothing store and never left.
I shrug. “I mean. She’s nice.”
Gail shakes her head, laughing. “You are unbelievable, Jasper.”
“What?” I ask, even though the distaste in Gail’s tone is always apparent.
She hasn’t liked Melanie since meeting her at an event at City Hall last spring.
Gail says she’s power hungry and craves the attention associated with being with the mayor.
If that’s true, the joke is on her because she’s not getting anywhere with me.
“You are the mayor of a touristy beach town. It’s like every young woman’s dream,” she trails on.
“Your point?” I accept her flattery but brush off the comment. “Don’t you have kids whose love lives you can meddle in?”
“I do, but they’re not as fun.” She warmly smiles.
“Aren’t I the lucky one,” I quip.
“You brought this on yourself!” she teases.
Gail is the same age as my mother would have been. She was our accountant at my dad’s shop for years. When I became mayor, I knew she had to come. Taking on the title of assistant from accountant took a lot of convincing and a pay raise. But let’s be honest, she runs this place.
“I did, didn’t I?” I laugh.
“Don’t forget, you must attend the opening of Easton’s new coffee shop this evening,” she reminds me. Easton is my best friend. I wouldn’t have forgotten.
“I know. He’s been blowing up my phone about this second location for months,” I say, clicking on a random email.
“He’s so excited,” Gail mutters. “I’m close to finalizing the last-minute paperwork for Coconut Grove Days. I’ll keep you updated.” She turns on her heels to leave my office, then quickly flips her neck around. “Are you going to take Melanie then?”
When I was a teenager, I never struggled with girls. Now, at twenty-eight years old, I’m struggling with maintaining long-term relationships.
“She’ll probably be there. She’s at all my events, but I’m not taking her like a date if that’s what you’re asking,” I answer, giving Gail a side-eye for her good-hearted overstepping.
Gail smiles, raising her eyebrows. “Just checking!”
“Thank you for your concern, but again, it’s unnecessary.”
Gail turns to leave my office but quickly whips her head around once again. “Oh, and I must leave early today, if you don’t mind. Devin is flying into town with his new girlfriend this afternoon.”
“I bet you’re excited to see him,” I say, keeping my head down and skimming the documents in front of me. “And this is the first time meeting your son’s girlfriend, right?”
“Yes!” she replies excitedly. “I spent yesterday evening cooking.”
“Have fun visiting with them this weekend,” I say, jumping to a new task of glancing through my emails. I can’t stay focused.
I stare at these unanswered emails, none of which need to be addressed immediately. I feel my eyes gloss over. My mind is blank. This time of the year rips me apart. The pain never subsides, and the hole in my soul remains unfilled.
I wipe my hands down my face in exasperation with myself. How can I let her get to me after all these goddamn years?
“I’m taking a personal day,” I yell through the open double doors of my office.
Gail pops her head in, a sympathetic expression on her face. “I figured.”
I nod, then log off my computer and grab my things. The beach is the only place I can go on this day that makes me feel better.
I’m already itching to hit the waves after the short drive from town to my small beach house. I walk in, strip off my clothes, and slip on shorts. Heading straight for the back patio, I grab my surfboard, ready to clear my head. The minute my bare feet hit the warm sand, I feel calm.
“Successful grand opening,” I compliment, approaching the bustling restaurant with a satisfied smile. I love seeing Coconut Grove flourish with new businesses.
“It definitely helps having my best friend as the mayor.” Easton pats me on the shoulder while we walk into his coffee shop after the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
I shrug it off. “You say that all the time, but I have to attend events like this all over town, you know that.”
“I’m just saying.” He leads me to a table by the window, quickly glancing at the line backing up at the order counter. “Everyone thought we were these troubled, parentless surf boys who were going nowhere in life.” His palms come up to move through the air. “And look at us now.”
I nod. “Look at us.”
“Yeah. Me, opening my second coffee shop. You, the fucking mayor? Riley and Bodhi …” he trails off.
One of the servers brings over a coffee and a slice of banana bread and sets it down in front of me. “It’s on the house, Mayor Collins,” she says coyly.
“You can call me Jasper,” I tell her.
The server’s eyes bounce over to Easton, then back to mine. “Jasper.” Her tone is bashful and unsure. She bows awkwardly, then skips away.
I cock a brow. “What the hell was that?”
“Yeah.” He laughs. “I told her she needed to address you formally.”
I roll my eyes, taking a sip of coffee. “You’re an asshole, you know that. Hazing your new employee is fucked up.”
“It’s not my fault that you’re the most laid-back mayor,” he says. “Who prefers everyone to call him by his first name.”
“If you ever left this small town, I’m sure you’d realize it’s more common than you think,” I quip, teasing my best friend while knowing he has spent his entire life here with no intention of ever leaving.
I guess the same can be said of myself.
Suddenly, Easton’s expression takes an empathetic form. “How are you holding up lately?”
I bend my leg over my knee and lean back in the wooden chair. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Because we’re your friends, and we care about you,” he says. “Your anniversary is coming up soon, isn’t it?”
“July twenty-eighth.”
“We used to live for summertime.” Easton makes eye contact with one of the servers, then points at the table behind us, alerting her they’re waiting for the check. Then he turns back to me. “Now, it’s lost all its joy.”
I shrug, scoffing at his observation. “We still surf and eat tacos together like when we were kids, so I don’t know what you feel changed that much.”
“Don’t treat me like a random person who hasn’t known you your whole life. I was there that summer. And I have been around ever since.”
I swallow hard and sigh. My best friend is right, but why has it been so hard for me to admit? Am I ashamed that I still let her get to me after all these years?
Easton and I quickly plaster on fake smiles, waving to a group of patrons entering the coffee shop.
“This time of the year has been hard for you ever since she left.”
He’s not going to let me off the hook without acknowledging something. “It’s strange how one summer changed every other that has come after.” I sigh. “It was three months, for fuck’s sake.”
“When are you going to move on?” he asks.
“I have no idea,” I tell him. I hope that one year, when the tides turn and the warm breeze rolls in, I won’t be reminded of the dull ache in the pit of my stomach—the emptiness and longing for what could have been.
“Maybe you won’t.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. Easton is the only one out of my three best friends with whom I can have these conversations.
“What do you mean?”
“When you know, you know,” he counters.
I rub the back of my neck, then crack it a few times, chasing relief from the last bit of tension that wasn’t taken care of earlier this afternoon. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. I need to move on.”
“Have you been able to hit the waves at all?”
I nod. “Yeah, I took a half day and spent the rest of the afternoon on the water.” I shrug. “It helped a little.”
“I loved Avery, you know that, but I also want to see you happy.”
“I am happy. I have a conference to attend at the end of the month, and a woman from the Orange County Chamber of Commerce caught my eye last fall,” I begin to explain, anticipating the next phase of this conversation will be me moving on from Avery.
I need to truly put myself out there with someone else. “I was thinking about asking her out.”
“Okay, this is a good start.” His hand flies up in front of us. “That would be long distance, but I guess that’s better than nothing.”
“I’m not sure if you’re trying to hype me up or insult me.”
Easton folds his arms across his chest. “Both.”
“I would expect nothing less.”
“You guys are still legally married, right?”
My eyes dart around the room, and I feel insecure about how casually he drops that information. “Yeah.”
“It’s been eight years.” He raises and grips the back of the chair. “Maybe it’s finally time for that divorce.”
“Maybe that’s what’s preventing me from moving on,” I say, mirroring his position. “What if it’s like a subconscious thing preventing me from, you know, forgetting about her?”
“I don’t think it’s about forgetting. I think it’s more about just making peace with it,” Easton says.
Does peace mean acceptance? Am I at a place of acceptance yet?
I’m not sure.